Piano
Biography:
‘The Parisian audience applauded pianist Olga Chelova's brilliant piano playing, musical temperament and rich expression.’
(Affiche Musicale D. R. Ignatov, Paris, 23 January 2020)
‘This young pianist is a polished diamond. She is a promising young artist.’
(Emder Zeitung)
‘... it was interesting, impressive and exciting to see how sensitively this exceptional young pianist did justice to the composer and his era. The most delicate pianissimo merged with the rustling of the trees outside ...’
(Ostfriesen-Zeitung)
‘... she played gently, lightly and yet with lightning speed, captivating the audience with her artistic maturity and lively performance.’
(Rhein-Zeitung)
The pianist Olga Chelova is one of the most promising artists of the new generation of pianists. Born in Odessa, she began playing the piano at the age of four. As a highly gifted piano student, she was accepted at the famous Stolyarsky Music School, where artists such as Emil Gilels and David Oistrach were trained. While still studying at this specialised school, she was the youngest participant in the International Chopin Competition in Ukraine and received a special prize for her exceptional performance of a Chopin nocturne. The jury president called Olga Chelova ‘a poet at the piano’.
After graduating from high school, she studied at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media, a breeding ground for the international piano elite. She furthered her education with postgraduate studies for piano soloists at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. During her studies, she received awards at several international competitions as well as numerous music prizes, special prizes and scholarships. Due to her outstanding achievements and commitment, Olga Chelova received scholarships from numerous institutions: the Anna Ruths Foundation, the Ottilie Selbach Redslob Foundation, the Bernbeck Foundation, the YAMAHA Germany Scholarship, the ‘Musik braucht Freunde’ scholarship and a scholarship from the HMTMH in Hanover. She was also a scholarship holder and prize winner at the Mozarteum Salzburg Summer Academy.
As a soloist, she has been a guest at various international music festivals and has performed on major stages across Europe. Olga Chelova has been a Young Steinway Artist since 2016. In 2019, she received the International Scholarship for Highly Gifted Artists from the Ernst Ludwig Studienwerk (ELES) in Berlin. As a prize winner of this institution, she moved to Paris, where she received important musical inspiration from Maestro Philippe Entremont and performed with this legendary pianist and conductor. In 2021, she was a prize winner at the international competition ‘Le Temps, paradoxe & illusion – Tremplin jeunes talents contemporains’ as a pianist and composer, and subsequently performed to great acclaim on the most important stages in Paris.
Albums:
Kreisleriana – Grandes études de Paganini – 16 Waltzes (four hands):
